Melbourne running out of water: What to do?

[Dowdy]

I might aswell use this thread to advertise my product

Sorry if this seems a bit cheesy...

Looking for ways to optimize water usage without setting up a costly greywater system?

This fabulous toilet cistern not only flushes, but when it refills itself, it does so via a tap on top of the tank. You can therefore use the water twice by washing your hands in it before it fills the water tank.

Has the potential of saving billions of litres of fresh water in the Australian and global environments.

The water your toilet uses to flush is the same as what you use to drink with. Don't let that water go to waste!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AhrH96lSiZc

 

[Prospector]

Ok enough of the rubbish.
Melbourne and indeed australia does not have a water supply problem. The issue is a total lack of perspective and strong enough legislation aimed at monitoring and managing water resource use. I work in sustainablility and it is evident, when looking at settlement patterns and resource usage in melbourne and Australia as a whole (I live in regional victoria), that almost no thought, no enforcement, no forward planning has been invested in the concept of sustainability, proper allocation of water resources and the pattern of future development. melbourne does not have a water problem, it has a water usage problem. Melbourne recieves plenty of water each year but uses it so incredibly poorly. I live and work on a sustainable community and our average power and water usage per person is around 0.3-0.5kwh and less than 100L. this includes all household chores. We have a usage and planning problem and the solutions are very simple, though our current political system will always fail to deliver the appropriate outcome: No more urban expansion - utilise many of the japanese ideals of high density urban housing, cut down the size of private yards and discourage grass and other non native plants that are essentialy useless and consume large quantities and even easier, install rain tanks for grey water usage and halve shower times and laundry loads. change the behaviour, solve the problem. There is no water shortage just poor management.

If there was a clapping icon I would use it here. I agree, we do not have a water problem we have a water management problem. And the environment always comes last ahead of financial interests. And whenever I hear Ms Penny Wong blame the drought or Global Warming for our water issues I get so

 

[Buckeroo]

If there was a clapping icon I would use it here. I agree, we do not have a water problem we have a water management problem. And the environment always comes last ahead of financial interests. And whenever I hear Ms Penny Wong blame the drought or Global Warming for our water issues I get so

I'm not sure its financial interests alone, I think peoples life style is just as important. As much as I agree with you that we are wasteful, realistically, technology is the key to fixing these problems, it's politically savvy, won't affect growth & people can continue doing what they do best whatever that is.

Putting a pipeline to Tassie would be a better option than desal for environmental reasons, but would probably cost more for Melbourners - Tassie would charge them for the privilege as well as the ongoing pumping costs etc (thats if its feasible).

Cheers

 

[kincella]

I live in Toorak, about 500 metres from the MIGHTY YARRA RIVER, its all there full to the brim, rushing out to sea............
no one seems to mention that the Yarra runs clean through the middle of Melbourne....'
its as if the river does not even exist....
why...is the yarra river never ever mentioned.....its full of water,
there should be small dams built into the sides of the river, to trap the water, and it should not be allowed to run out to sea....
I find it ridiculous the talk of millions of dollars to take water from Tassi, or from regional Vic at a huge cost, so that Melbournians can waste as much as they like
in fact they should have been pumping the water from the yarra, back up into regional Vic, which has been in drought for over 15 years...
here it is raining in Melb again today, all that beautiful pure fresh water wasted, running down the gutters

 

[Prospector]

here it is raining in Melb again today, all that beautiful pure fresh water wasted, running down the gutters

Yup, . Our State Government has spent billions on a desal plant. It has to get that money back. It is no longer in their financial interests to capture storm water; it has to use the water from the desal plant in order to pay for it. And charge the consumer squillions. In fact, we wont have water restrictions when it comes online; we cant actually, because then the Govt wont get enough money back.

Our power goes off regularly in summer; to use this desal plant will require huge electricity useage; have we increased our electrical supplies? Nup.

 

[sam76]

I might aswell use this thread to advertise my product

Sorry if this seems a bit cheesy...

Looking for ways to optimize water usage without setting up a costly greywater system?

This fabulous toilet cistern not only flushes, but when it refills itself, it does so via a tap on top of the tank. You can therefore use the water twice by washing your hands in it before it fills the water tank.

Has the potential of saving billions of litres of fresh water in the Australian and global environments.

The water your toilet uses to flush is the same as what you use to drink with. Don't let that water go to waste!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AhrH96lSiZc

The Japanese have a similar system

 

[Smurf1976]

Our power goes off regularly in summer; to use this desal plant will require huge electricity useage; have we increased our electrical supplies? Nup.

Victoria's power supply struggles even when everything works perfectly.

Assuming this summer has the same weather as last, the only way demand can be met is with literally everything working perfectly in Vic plus supply from not one but all of the states (NSW, SA, Tas) able to supply Vic. And of course that assumes NSW, SA and Tas don't have problems of their own and actually have power to send to Vic.

Must be a wonderful prospect to look forward to. Sit in the office with no air-conditioning because the power's out, become dehydrated because the water's run out and then walk home because the trains don't work. Victoria's infrastructure is a joke almost beyond belief in a supposedly wealthy country.

But this whole privatisation / competition thing is working as expected by anyone who gave it serious thought. Infrastructure doesn't get built in that environment or is built cheaply (so it fails when under maximum load). That this would occur was no secret at the time, but politicians didn't listen and now we're just starting to pay the price - there's more to come...

 

[bugmenot]

Is this not a stock/investment forum???

I am amazed noone has mentioned Carnegie (CNM) and CETO wave power so far. Has the potential to provide base load power and fresh water for all australian capital citys except Brisbane.

Essentially it is a wave power system which pumps 1000psi sea water to shore where it can either be turned into freshwater through a desal plant, or turned into fresh electicity via hydro.

www.ceto.com.au/
www.carnegiecorp.com.au/

 

[Trembling Hand]

Ok enough of the rubbish.
Melbourne and indeed australia does not have a water supply problem.

I live and work on a sustainable community and our average power and water usage per person is around 0.3-0.5kwh and less than 100L. this includes all household chores.

There is no water shortage just poor management.

I agree with your general statement that we have a management problem rather than water shortage one. But how much is your so called "sustainable community" really sustainable without the rest of the "unsustainable" Nasty Capitalist wasteful industry/community.

It could be argued that it probably comes from outside your "community".

 

[Dowdy]

I might aswell use this thread to advertise my product

Sorry if this seems a bit cheesy...

Looking for ways to optimize water usage without setting up a costly greywater system?

This fabulous toilet cistern not only flushes, but when it refills itself, it does so via a tap on top of the tank. You can therefore use the water twice by washing your hands in it before it fills the water tank.

Has the potential of saving billions of litres of fresh water in the Australian and global environments.

The water your toilet uses to flush is the same as what you use to drink with. Don't let that water go to waste!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AhrH96lSiZc

I got my shipment in today. You can purchase these now. They're listed on my ebay site http://shop.ebay.com.au/merchant/dowd_hardware_W0QQ_nkwZQQ_armrsZ1QQ_fromZQQ_ipgZ

If anyone in these forums want to purchase one, let me know through PM and i can do it cheaper or you can try your luck with the ebay bidding (starting bid only $1)

 

[Smurf1976]

Melbourne's running out of water, meanwhile Tassie's going under water...

Floods down here now following the massive rains recently. Bureau of Meteorology estimates a flow of 1200 cumecs in the South Esk river at Trevallyn Dam (Launceston) tomorrow whilst Hydro is forecasting 1400 cumecs at the same location.

What do these numbers mean? In short, in just one hour tomorrow morning the flow at Trevallyn will be equal to Melbourne's water consumption during the entire decade of the 1990's. Yep, that's right, 10 years' worth of water in just one hour. And it will be flowing for a lot longer than just an hour...

Water shortage? No, we just don't capture, store and move the water have.

For anyone in Tas who wants to have a look, Trevallyn Dam is a short drive from Launceston CBD and is accessible to the public with a viewing area above the dam for taking photos etc. The water will also be very visible in the Gorge at any location.

 

[Garpal Gumnut]

The sooner Melbourne runs out of water the better.

What a godforsaken place.

Living off the hard work of the rest of Australia.

A common small incestuous city, begot in a gold rush, with lousy weather and every godbothering clan fighting each other within its confines.

Long may it thirst for water.

gg

 

[queenslander55]

The sooner Melbourne runs out of water the better.

What a godforsaken place.

Living off the hard work of the rest of Australia.

A common small incestuous city, begot in a gold rush, with lousy weather and every godbothering clan fighting each other within its confines.

Long may it thirst for water.

gg

For God's sake GG you're kidding aren't you?
We're wall to wall with bloody 'mexicans' up here now, and you want to foist the few that are left down there on us? Give us a break!!!

 

[Timmy]

Well, here is some good news, a move in the right direction:

Melbourne's water reserves overflowing after rainfall

This is obviously a situation where "the sky is falling" is a good thing

 

[Prospector]

Reservoirs in SA are now full and a couple are overflowing. But the excess water is being allowed to go out to sea, rather than letting Councils use it to water significant trees or put it into wetland areas to recharge the aquifer. But our reservoirs still only hold enough water for Adelaide's needs for a year -we need to continue pumping from the Murray. And our stupid water Minister the other day said they only planned to enlarge the reservoirs so they could hold more water pumped from the Murray, and not to catch more run-off. So the enlargement is not happening. Why? Because the Govt is in the process of building a de-sal plant and we have to use that water because it means they can charge us more for it, rather than increase the capacity of the 'free water'.

 

[pj2105]

Somebody upstairs must of read your thread...it hasn't stopped raining in Melbourne for days.

http://www.melbournewater.com.au/content/water_storages/water_report/water_report.asp

 

[Smurf1976]

Reservoirs in SA are now full and a couple are overflowing. But the excess water is being allowed to go out to sea, rather than letting Councils use it to water significant trees or put it into wetland areas to recharge the aquifer. But our reservoirs still only hold enough water for Adelaide's needs for a year -we need to continue pumping from the Murray. And our stupid water Minister the other day said they only planned to enlarge the reservoirs so they could hold more water pumped from the Murray, and not to catch more run-off. So the enlargement is not happening. Why? Because the Govt is in the process of building a de-sal plant and we have to use that water because it means they can charge us more for it, rather than increase the capacity of the 'free water'.

From an engineering perspective, the water "crisis" in Adelaide and Melbourne is entirely solvable. It's just that for some reason people keep listening to politicians and the "can't be done" brigade rather than relying on proper engineering which does have answers.

Politicians lie whereas proper measurements and calculations are far more accurate.

Believe it or not, some idiots down here in Tas are trying to get federal funds to install a water meter on every house. Then they're going to start reading these meters and issuing bills based on how much is used. It makes sense in many parts of the world certainly, but here in Tas the cost of the meters exceeds the cost of what they're measuring so it's a rather pointless exercise. It would cost the same to fix the water supply bottlenecks and problems as it will cost to install meters. Why not just fix the problems instead?

 

[Riddick]

I agree with your general statement that we have a management problem rather than water shortage one. But how much is your so called "sustainable community" really sustainable without the rest of the "unsustainable" Nasty Capitalist wasteful industry/community.

It could be argued that it probably comes from outside your "community".

Glad I left out that vital piece of information so I could lure one of the "inverted commas" people into my web.

our "sustainable community" is indeed just that.

some numbers:

* 1.5 megaliters on site harvested from rainwater and creek if needed. Onsite purification plant with UV filter.
* water pumped with 2x hydraulic ram pumps (no electricity required) to pump from creek if needed. back up electric pump.
* 360 solar panels in five arrays, seasonably moved hooked into an inverter with 180 storage batteries.
* 1 x wind turbine contributing constantly to base load.
* back up diesel if necesary
* onsite sewerage plant. once year maintenance.

* not connected to the Victorian grid for electricity and water. completely stand alone. This counts as sustainable.

Population serviced with this infrastructure: from 80 - 100.

We do have a bunch of water saving features but the biggest one of these is simply low water system pressure. No massage strength showers, just gravity feed.

THE most effective water saving thing is education and constant monitoring and reminding.

If something isn't in your face you don't tend to think about it. such is the story in every capital city in Aus I have lived in (every one except bris and hobart). if it simply "comes out of the tap when i turn it on and costs nothing" then really it is not important to the vast bulk of th country. Until we make it more expensive or provide incentives to save water it simply will always be that australians will want their house and land package over sustainable urban design, it will be that australia will want a front and back lawn, feel the need to wash to dog, climb under the hose on a hot day. the list in endless.

So I restate my initial assertion. we don;t have a water supply problem, we just have an chronic overuse problem.

 

[Riddick]

I've never made so many typos in one document before. I must be tired, and beg your forgivelness!

 

[Garpal Gumnut]

Melbourne is a community full of bogans, centrelink dependents, godbotherers, old rich, criminals, and executives of corporations vital to Australia's future.

The latter would be better placed in Brisbane, Townsville or Darwin, cities with a future.

The sooner you run out of water the better. And keep the former.

gg